A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two; addendum (Identity)

by David Turell , Wednesday, July 25, 2018, 18:48 (2312 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I did not say my brain creates thoughts on its own. I/soul use my brain to create thoughts, and you know it.

dhw: You keep repeating the mantra “the soul uses the brain to think”, but you can never add any uses beyond those of information and material expression.

I'll repeat it again. My soul is me. I know that I create thought in life by using the brain networks. Therefore the soul uses the brain networks to create its/my thoughts. Why do you try to separate your soul from you?

DAVID: As usual you have totally twisted my theory to criticize it by using your definition of dualism, which is not my definition.

dhw: As above, I find myself constantly trying to UNtwist the different theories. You actually repeat my definition that “dualism = two things (soul/me and brain/body)". I have tried straightforwardly to explain the different functions they would perform if there is a soul, whereas your version of their functions seems to become ever more convoluted, with all the nebulous concepts listed above.

What I describe is quite clear to me. I'm simply recognizing the material side of the issue.

DAVID: The first point is we know consciousness arises from electric currents made from ions running around brain networks.

dhw:That is materialism, and fits the first part of my theory, the theistic version being that your God created this mechanism. However, in another of your theories, the soul is a piece of God’s consciousness. I doubt if God’s consciousness arises from electric currents made from ions running round brain networks, so why can’t your God’s consciousness be conscious in life and in death?

My brain networks allow me to receive God's consciousness. It is his gift to us.

DAVID: Therefore thought develops that way when I/soul originate it, by using the brain, which in life is the mechanism we have. In using the immaterial image of me as 'soul' is just an attempt to define a soul as that which exists and can leave my dead body to enter an afterlife.

dhw: If thought is created by electrical activity in the brain, it is not created (originated) by the immaterial soul! But I keep agreeing that the dualist’s soul uses the brain network to develop its thoughts through information and material expression. I have never heard the soul defined as “that which exists”, but we have agreed umpteen times that if it does exist, it is the part of you that thinks, feels etc. There wouldn’t be much point in it surviving if it didn’t think and feel.

I'll repeat: I/soul drive/originate the thoughts created through the electricity in the brain networks. The networks never can do it on their own as you try to imply about my theory.

DAVID: In the Bible God breathed a soul into Adam's body, after He created the body. The soul is not the body in current belief, but belongs to the body. My belief mirrors that.

dhw: I never knew of any dualist who thought the soul was the body, and I don’t understand what you mean by “belongs” to the body.

Belongs means the soul resides in my body until death when it leaves.

dhw: We agree that if it exists, it resides in the body/brain. The biblical story coincides with your belief that the soul is a piece of God’s consciousness. It does not coincide with your belief that thought is created by electrical waves in the brain.

The bible didn't know about electricity.

dhw: our problem is not different concepts of dualism but the seemingly irreconcilable clash between your belief in a conscious soul as the initiator of thought and your belief, here called knowledge, that consciousness and thought arise from electric currents in the brain.

Repeated for the umpteenth time: The soul/I use the electrical networks to initiate and to create thought. My soul is me!

dhw: You cannot see that this contradiction lies at the very heart of the debate between dualism and materialism, and the object of our discussions is to find a coherent explanation for the mystery. I have tried to do that, but I can’t find any coherence in all your contradictions and nebulous, transient concepts mentioned above.

I may have difficulty turning my theories into something you can understand, but all you do is keep using rigid forms of dualism I don't accept. I start from the point that I know I use my brain to be conscious and think. There has to be a material side to thinking. I think it is the soul that allows consciousness to appear from the material side, as you know.